On 26 January 1972, Vesna Vulović would make history as the first person to fall 33,000 feet out of the sky and survive.An air hostess for Yugoslav Airlines, Vulović was one of 27 onboard a flight from Stockholm to Belgrade when tragedy struck. A bomb, believed to have been placed onboard the aircraft by Croatian nationalists, exploded while the plane was cruising above a village in the north of the Czech Republic.The aircraft subsequently broke into three pieces before tumbling to the ground near the Czech village of Srbská Kamenice.While the rest of the aircraft’s crew and passengers either perished in the explosion or impact, Vulović was found alive in the middle of the aisle in the rear section of the aircraft.

Aged just 22 years old, Vulović was severely injured – suffering from a fractured skull, broken legs, broken ribs and a fractured pelvis – and spent months in hospital, but ultimately survived.Before you take Vulović’s story as a sign that surviving a plane exploding at 33,000 feet is a typically survivable event, it’s worth noting that the Serbian national was saved by a variety of favourable factors.According to Vulović’s entry in the Guinness Book of World Records, the explosion had led to her becoming pinned underneath a food trolley, which prevented her from being sucked out of the aircraft.